Abritus 251 - Crisis of the Third Century DOCUMENTARY

[Music] as unprecedented levels of plague civil war and economic decay crippled the once invincible roman empire during the crisis of the 3rd century a new barbarian group from near the black sea the goths started their raids into roman territory and as the 3rd century crisis progressed this new confederation would launch invasion after invasion during one of these invasions culminating at abratus in 251 something would occur for the first time in the history of the roman empire shout out to brilliant for sponsoring this video we're happy to be partners with brilliant as this educational platform and our channel share similar values do you know someone who likes to ask how does the refrigerator work or how do i solve this puzzle or maybe even what is quantum computing if so we've got just the thing for you spread the love of knowledge and learning to your loved ones by gifting them brilliant this really excites us because it's such a fun way to nurture curiosity build confidence and develop problem-solving skills crucial to school job interviews or their career brilliant thought-provoking content breaks up complexities into bite-sized understandable chunks that will lead them from curiosity to mastery go to brilliant.org kings as generals and grab a gift subscription to help your loved ones finish their day a little smarter in early spring 235 the last severan emperor of rome severus alexander who was very unpopular with his legionaries was murdered by assassins sent by maximinus thraxx this physically massive and incredibly popular general of thracian origin was hailed as the new augustus by the troops becoming the first true soldier emperor of rome maximinius deliberately ignored the traditional step of journeying to the capital for the senate to confirm his legitimacy instead he would remain with his legionary power base on the frontier and campaign against rome's barbarian enemies for three years from his usurpation of the throne the emperor personally led his troops into merciless campaigns first winning a victory against the alemany across the rhine after which he took the title germanicus maximus the year after he moved to sermium and struck against stations and summations on the danube [Applause] maximines's frequent wars required massive expenditure funds which could only be obtained by bleeding the provinces dry with increased taxes this made the emperor incredibly unpopular in many parts of the empire and a revolt eventually broke out at this in the province of africa pro-consularis where a predatory roman procurator was killed in a riot so began 238 a.d the year of the six emperors an elderly pro-consul marcus antonius gordiana sempronianus was coerced by the mob into taking the imperial purple as gordian the first after doing so he quickly set himself up in the provincial capital at carthage and elevated his son gordian ii to share the responsibility hearing of this the senate in rome hastily confirmed the legitimacy of both new emperors in africa and declared maximinas an enemy of the state unfortunately for the makeshift rebellious faction numidia's governor remained loyal to maximinus and led legion 3 augusta against gordian ii's hastily assembled army crushing the revolt outside of carthage and killing the younger gordian whilst doing so learning of his son's fate gordian the first committed suicide [Music] the senators in rome could either throw themselves at the thracian's feet and shamelessly beg for mercy or continue to resist alone they chose the latter option elevating two prominent senators popianis and balbonus to the imperial purple to serve as mega consuls as historian patricia southern called them lacking popular support the aristocratic leadership was then forced to adopt the young gordian iii thirteen-year-old nephew of gordian ii as their heir predictably livid at this new triad of so-called emperors maximinus began his march from sirmiam to punish them in response pupienus marched north to organize the defense of italy while balbinus stayed behind though max and minis's frontier legions were battle-hardened veterans papianis's employment of guerrilla tactics a fierce winter and a lack of supplies led to the offensive getting bogged down in a siege at aquilea when the frustrated maximinus began to push his troops too far his army mutinied and killed him outside the city before mounting his head on a spike despite that victory the three-way power-sharing arrangement in rome couldn't last for long mutual jealousy between pobieness and balbinus along with their inability to win over the praetorian guard led to their brutal executions not long after so the year of the six emperors ended with gordian iii as sole emperor of rome nobles and generals alike quickly rallied around this young emperor whose government made an effort to deal with the various administrative financial and military problems which had accrued since alexander's death after 241 the main figure in this effort was gordian's praetorian prefect timothy's though he managed to stabilize the empire briefly leading successful campaigns on the northern border and against the sassanids he died in 243 soon after without a guardian to protect him gordian iii died in dubious circumstances and was succeeded by the new praetorian prefect marcus julius vera's philippus philip the arab who possibly played a role in gordian's death although that is a matter of vigorous debate after leaving his brother gaius priskas in charge of the east philipp went to rome in summer 244 and perhaps trying to rid himself of regicide accusations had gordian iii deified the year after he left for a campaign against carpai invaders on the danube and managed to claim a complete victory returning to rome for a very special occasion 248 a.d saw the emperor preside over the 1000th anniversary of rome's supposed foundation by romulus in 753 bc combining the celebrations for his military success and those for the millennium occasion philip held a grand secular games with many theatrical literary artistic and musical events along with spectacles in the circus and amphitheater this high point in philip's reign wasn't to last long in the last months of the same year two separate mutinies began led by pakitianas on the danube and giorgio pianis in syria philip lost his nerve at this point and offered to resign but his spirit was buoyed by the confident oration of an experienced senator gaius messieurs quintus deckius who deftly predicted that the revolts would simply collapse on their own soon after both did indeed collapse and dekius was brought to the emperor's attention as a brilliant mind [Music] such internal unrest near the vulnerable balkan frontier had weakened imperial defenses in the region leading to even more attacks by the germanic quadi and summation iozigies however by far the most lethal group was a new much larger confederation which was making its first of many appearances in the roman world the goths with the bordering chaos because of these raids philippe's reaction was to give decchius command over all of pannonia and misha in hopes that he of all people could restore order accompanied by his son herrenius deckius did just that and by mid 249 the barbarian raiders had been defeated and cast out from roman lands however the legions then clothed their victorious commander in the imperial purple and forced a supposedly reluctant deckiest to lead them back to rome as conquerors [Music] in rome philip was informed of the new revolt and marched out to meet the denubian legions and their treacherous commander in northern italy the emperor engaged deccius near verona in the autumn of 249 but despite numerical superiority was utterly defeated by the superior quality of dekius's veteran mission frontier troops the 60 year old became emperor at the end of 249 accepting the prestigious addition of trianus to his name in recognition of the successes on the danube rome's new ruler immediately tried to unify the empire religiously by reaffirming the old religion with jupiter as the main god prominent christians such as pope fabian were killed for their refusal to conform as were many other adherents of the faith throughout the whole empire however things would change again dereckias had drained the danube frontier of its defenders opening a breach which the goths took advantage of almost immediately the burgeoning goths were now under the leadership of a capable new warlord niva whose goths marched into the empire with a combined army of kapai vandals bastiane other germanic tribes and some roman deserters [Music] after first sending a separate horde of germanic warriors into dasia to tie up roman forces there geneva marched straight towards the border city of nove which also served as one of the great denubian defensive limeys or frontier fortresses of the empire the local commander troponianus galas managed to repel them so the gothic king moved on to other targets at this point kniever divided his 70 000 strong army into two main columns one heading off to besiege marchianopolis and the other under the king himself marching on necopolis never the greatest at siegecraft knives barbarians failed to take either city quickly due to the city's powerful fortifications a delay which gave deckiest time to arrive with the imperial army and uproot the goths from their sea judge necopolis this rapacious plundering of imperial territory probably prompted the emperor and his legions to march double time and they were eventually forced to take a breather near augusta triana formerly baroe where they set up camp however as the romans were resting knives army unexpectedly turned and descended on the legions by surprise inflicting terrible casualties scattering the imperial army and forcing the emperor to flee in humiliation and defeat though deckius managed to escape north into michia his army had been shredded and the emperor had to spend the campaigning season of 250 recovering from the intelligent gothic attack meanwhile knives his warriors now equipped with high-quality roman military equipment looted from the battlefield at augusta triana marched on the city of philippopolis to accomplish the barbarian's aim of plundering the empire's vast wealth the barbarian army's arrival outside the unprepared city prompted its people and the small force of thracian legionaries defending it to elevate the local commander titus julius priskas to the imperial purple possibly in order to give him legal authority to negotiate with the goths during the palais knives promised priskus gothic support in his bid for the roman throne if the city gates were opened in what proved to be a fatal mistake the thracian governor let the barbarians in thereby falling hook line and sinker for knives clever ploy before himself being killed priskus witnessed philippopolis be viciously plundered and burned its material wealth carted away and its citizens marched off to be sold as slaves the invaders had accomplished their goal of extracting vast amounts of treasure from the beleaguered empire and now began their trek towards the denubian frontier hampered by a heavily plunder-laden baggage train deckius wasn't about to let the gothic army escape and set about chasing the enemy as quickly as possible the crafty knives predicted this and knew that his encumbered army now wasn't fast enough to outpace the legions as the forces of the roman emperor slowly caught up dekius dispatched herrenius to harass and slow them down even more with skirmishing cavalry however during one of these engagements the caesar pushed too far and was slain by an arrow loosed by one of the retreating goths when dekkius found out about the death of his son he was stricken with grief but supposedly took the loss stoically lifting the mood of his soldiers by proclaiming let no one mourn because the death of one soldier is no great loss to the republic however this quote is almost definitely apocryphal realizing that the roman legions were almost on top of him knives surveyed the nearby terrain and chose a suitable place to set a trap for deckius whom he had already observed to be rather careless the gothic army turned to face its pursuers about nine miles north west of abritas near modern daydreams in bulgaria knives arranged his army into three lines of battle one behind the other two on some flat planes in front and a third slightly further back behind an area of treacherous swampland the gothic warlord's genius was to array his forces so that the second and third lines along with the lethal quagmire were shielded from view by the vanguard of his army to deckius it would have appeared that he was facing just a reasonably small line of barbarians on good flat ground ground on which the formed of legions had an unconquerable advantage roman forces formed up for battle opposite the goths and then the emperor had an altar set up at which he made a pre-battle sacrifice to the eternal city's old gods before battle was joined with the gods favor surely on their side and eager to regain honor which had been lost at augusta triana the romans charged legionaries threw their pila and the barbarian army threw heavy spears before both lines clashed in gritty face-to-face combat the legions were now in their element slashing bloody holes into the ranks of knives first line with their short swords and breaking it with relative ease those gothic warriors and their allies who weren't killed on the spot began to scatter to the rear and the romans advanced in order to catch up to dekus's shock the gothic second line then charged at the legions and engaged it did barely any better than the first wave collapsing without much resistance and fleeing in short order the battle was going as planned and the goths were routing it was time to finish the barbarians off deckius either ordered his forces to charge forward or lost control of his men who ran headlong into the sucking morass in front of knives reserve at this point the gothic king sprang his deadly trap unleashing the fresh troops in his third line to surround the roman army which was ponderously dragging itself through the muck on three sides with its crucial formations broken apart by the terrain the fatigued imperial army was cut to pieces somewhere in the horrific massacre witnessing the utter destruction of his army roman emperor trajan deckius was slain by gothic arms he was the first emperor of rome to die in battle to a foreign enemy the defeat at abratus was a nightmare to the empire's citizens and it quickly spurred rumors of treason which caused another civil war although the goths now had the initiative they decided to retreat to the north carrying all of their spoils of war the gods would continue to be a threat to the roman empire but that is a story for another documentary so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have pressed the bell button we 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Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 575,631

Keywords: roman empire, roman legion, roman legions, full documentary, roman army tactics, roman army documentary, kings and generals, history lesson, military history, ancient history, decisive battles, animated historical documentary, roman republic, roman military, crisis of the third century, fall of the roman empire, king and generals, history documentary, late roman empire, abritus, decius, cniva, philip the arab, empire divided, fall of rome, history channel, goths, maximinus

Id: fF1LOp0ZFLU

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 22 2019